I've never done it myself, but some people I know have told me they've had "out-of-body" experiences. They've described floating around outside their bodies.

One woman (actually my mother-in-law at the time) described sitting in her kitchen doing something she always does - peeling carrots - and she suddenly realized she was floating near the ceiling, looking down at her body continuing to peel away.

Another good friend had a girlfriend who committed suicide because they broke up. He was tremendously distraught. He described how this woman came back through another girlfriend (who he said was very susceptible to this sort of thing and was willing to let this happen) to tell him she shouldn't have killed herself and that everything was alright. She did it to ease his pain. This man also said he was able to float outside his body.

I knew both of these people for many years and they weren't nutjobs, so I put some value in what they told me.

It seems to me that if these experiences were real, then it makes sense that when our body ceases to function, we are able to leave our body for good.

Shirley MacLaine wrote that she learned how to leave her body and that there was a silver cord that connected her to her body. She said that when you die, that silver cord snaps. True? I have no idea. But it surely is interesting. I know: stop calling me Shirley! ;)